Big Idea: Bildad’s theological system leaves no room for a righteous person to suffer as Job has.

Understanding the Text

Bildad’s second response to Job, in this chapter, echoes many of the points made by Eliphaz in his second speech, in Job 15. As a theoretical thinker, Bildad views Job’s situation as a generic case study of retribution, not as the unique, personal tragedy that it is. Bildad’s rigid thinking, therefore, leaves him little room to encourage Job. Bildad begins with a strong retort against Job (18:1–4), rejecting as nonsense what Job has said. The major portion of Bildad’s speech (18:5–21) is a lecture; he contends that the world functions as a machine in which wickedness is always judged by God. In this speech, Bildad considers only the negative side of the retribution pri…